CCNY’s Lance Jay Brown to Head ACSA College of Distinguished Professors

Lance Jay Brown, FAIA, ACSA Distinguished Professor in the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture at The City College of New York, has been elected inaugural chancellor of the College of Distinguished Professors of the Association of Collegiate Schools of Architecture (ACSA).

The ACSA College of Distinguished Professors was created in 2010 to advance architectural education, provide guidance to junior faculty, assist with the selection of distinguished professors honors, and to promote the ASCA. It is composed of association members who have been awarded the American Institute of Architects Topaz Medal and/or ACSA’s Distinguished Professor Award.

Professor Brown earned the Distinguished Professor Award in 2003 and the Topaz Medal, the highest honor given to an American architectural educator, in 2007. It is awarded to one who has evidenced great depth and breadth, having a cumulative effect on a long line of students, influencing a wide range of students, transcending specific areas of expertise, and directing him/herself to the future as well as the past.

As chancellor, he will organize the governance of the college, initiate the wide range of programs proposed by the bylaws and create a reference archive. “Members of the college can improve the quality of education, scholarship and research among the community of students, scholars, teachers, and practitioners responsible for the health, safety and beauty of the built environment,” he said. “Current events have again elevated the importance of addressing the present and anticipating the future in ways we can and must energetically engage.”

Besides his teaching and professional architecture and urban design studio, Professor Brown contributes to the advancement of architecture in wide-ranging areas. He is a board member of the AIA New York chapter and serves as the American Institute of Architects regional and state coordinator for disaster preparedness and as advisor to the International University Center Haiti, a project to help restore that country’s higher education infrastructure.

He also helped found and serves on the board of the Consortium for Sustainable Urbanization, a collaboration between UN Habitat, the AIA New York Chapter and partners, including CCNY. In addition, he will moderate the panel on “leapfrog innovations as agents for change” at the consortium’s upcoming conference, “Better City/Better Life, South-North Initiative,” to be held at the United Nations May 18.

Professor Brown attended The Cooper Union and Harvard University Graduate School of Design (MArch and MArch in Urban Design) and was a Fulbright scholar in Paris. In addition, while teaching at Princeton University he was a faculty fellow at the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.